Shadow Play
by caracarus
Summary: An exploration of Zed's motivations and relationship with his shadows in particular using both his viewpoint and the viewpoints of other characters as a medium. Will likely be a collection of one shots for a period of time before branching out. Rated T just to be safe, doubt anything will be that provocative. Labelled angst and drama cuz those seemed most appropriate.


**_DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN LEAGUE OF LEGENDS OR ANY CHARACTERS ETC._**

This is the start of my Zed fanfic, the second part of this post is told from Riven's perspective for story purposes. Every other section of the story will likely be told from other champions' or peoples' points of view. The story as of its current incarnation will tell of Zed's first encounters with many champions and will later develop along a rather arbitrary direction. Because I haven't thought that far along. My main focuses will be examining Zed's motivations and his relationship with his shadows in particular. Any reviews, constructive criticisms and other such things are welcome and highly appreciated.

**_Part 1 - Suicide_**

Don't.

_Please, don't_

Why?

_Don't._

You pulled away, didn't you?

_It wasn't my fault, please._

It's never your fault, always mine.

_That's not true._

I always take the blame.

_No-_

I always take the blame.

_You don't-_

So let them be my actions.

_Please-_

Embrace the shadow, or die in darkness.

_You and me-_

No, it's only me now.

**_Part 2 - Shadow Play_**

She remembered.

_How did it feel?_

_Like...no it is a hand curling around your heart. Teasing, squeezing, toying with your life. It is death turned into a cold seductress. It is coy, but inevitable. _

_Then how did you live?_

_Does it look like I lived to you? I survive, I do not live._

_She looked upon him._

_She understood._

_His body._

_She imagined._

_Once it must have been strong, supple, wiry._

_It must have been._

_Now it was weak, rigid, thin._

_Dead._

_If she had looked upon him, deaf to his groans, he would have been a corpse._

_That was how he had been left._

_By him._

She felt it.

Fear?

Was this fear? Exhilaration?

She wanted it to something.

Just a fraction of what she had felt so long ago.

Riven had forgotten it.

The flames of glory. To her it had been the heat of the sun, that feeling of battle.

Battle had been as natural as breathing.

To enjoy it had been what had sustained her life.

The scars given to her by that man- No that thing.

That thing had taken it away.

It had made that which she cherished most abhorrent. She wanted to revel in it again, to feel fear of death again, to not be consigned.

"Are you him?"

Pools of gleaming red stared back.

How could he kill someone that was already dead?

She felt no fear, only anticipation.

She studied his form. A grilled kenpo, and those roiling pools of scarlet. He hid his face. Why does he hide?

Is he ashamed? What is he hiding beneath those layers of menacing steel, those flowing robes of red?

Riven had no more time to contemplate, she felt it. Vital energy welling up from his form, she had been in tune with the song of life since time immemorial. A time when she could not had long been gobbled down by the horizon of her memory, had long been forgotten.

As a member of the walking dead, should she not be even more sensitive?

Ki.

She felt it.

And she saw the roiling mass of shadow.

And she felt fear.

Raising her blade, once vital and whole, she fortified herself against that onslaught.

Broadsword met wristblade.

She was disappointed. Did this man believe she was weak? That she could not overpower him? That his weapon could somehow block her own? That was impossible by simple virtue of mass-

Pain.

Blinding, searing pain. Red streaks marred her once perfect vision, but still she managed to see. The blade of shadow made reality piercing her side, the facsimile of the man almost playfully resting his masked head on her shoulder.

"How?"

"Ignorance is fatal."

She was afraid of dying.

She wanted to live.

She had claimed the fear she had desired for so long. And her power surged forth in response. Her blade made whole again by her desperation, she released a massive burst of kinetic energy. The blast dispersed the shadow and pushed the real man backward.

She hoped it had stunned him, dazed him. And she realized how wonderful it was that she could hope in battle again. That battle had become a place of emotion again. Not a nihilistic dance that acknowledged human suffering and madness. Not a disgusting shadow that held no glory.

She felt power again, she felt powerful again, she felt whole again.

And that was when he shattered her.

She remembered what that dead man had said.

She felt the fingers toying with her heart.

She turned, panicked, and found the heartless steel pressed into her neck.

She glanced and saw the shadows, a pack of ravening wolves.

She could almost see a cruel smile play on the man's lips beneath that hateful sheet of metal.

She heard his laugh as he left in a swirl of shadow.

For it was inevitable, she felt it welling up inside of her.

Death.

The vice of death as it poked and prodded at her heart, the ebb and flow of pain.

She dreaded each crest, and had been reduced to a state where she felt relief at each low tide.

Pain.

An all-consuming tidal wave of pain.

It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

Let it stop.

Ithurtsletitstop.

Please.

She begged, begged anything and anyone.

And it stopped. In the last moments before oblivion took her, she realized she was only alive because he had allowed it. She was only alive because he pitied her.

She had made the mistake of playing with shadows. Frolicking with the tireless avatars that constantly shroud mere mortals. She had forgotten that she would always lose to that shadow. She thanked him for the reminder.

She cursed him for his pity.

And a fire blazed within her again. He would die, by her hand.

If only to prove something to herself.


End file.
